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Top doctors criticise plans to advise millions to take statins

A group of doctors have criticised plans to advise millions more people to take cholesterol-reducing statins. The drugs are offered to around seven million people in the UK who have a 20% risk of developing cardiovascular disease within 10 years.

Top doctors warn 'medicalisation of millions' unjustified

The "medicalisation of millions of healthy individuals" is unjustified and Nice's statin guidance "represents a further embarrassment" for the health body, a group of leading doctors said.

Top doctors have criticised the guidance from Nice. Credit: Andrew Matthews/PA Wire

Professor Simon Capewell, professor of clinical epidemiology at the University of Liverpool, said: "Two decades of research has confirmed the obvious: doctors receiving drug industry funding produce recommendations favouring the industry.

"It also represents a further embarrassment for Nice.

"Nice urgently need to develop a better mechanism for controlling these conflicts of interests. The recent statin recommendations are deeply worrying, effectively condemning all middle aged adults to lifelong medications of questionable value."